ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 



of S. Francesco, a sanctuary for which he cherished 

 especial devotion. By his will, he left a sum of 

 six hundred ducats for the decoration of the chapel 

 and altar of Archbishop Liberius, whose ashes rest 

 in this ancient basilica. But these last wishes were 

 never obeyed, and after the death of his widow, 

 twenty years later, the Franciscan friars obtained 

 the Pope's leave to divert to their own uses the 

 money which he had bequeathed. 



Meanwhile Guidarello's remains were laid in an 

 early Christian sarcophagus, and by his wife's pious 

 care the tomb was enriched with his armorial 

 bearings and adorned with an effigy of the dead 

 knight in armour. Some Ravennese writers have 

 described this statue as the work of a local sculptor, 

 but there seems no reason to dispute the old 

 tradition which assigns it to the Venetian, Tullio 

 Lombardi. Not only does the marble bear a close 

 relation to this gifted sculptor's other works in 

 Padua and Venice, but the tradition is confirmed by 

 a contemporary chronicle preserved in the library 

 of S. Apollinare di Classe where the writer ex- 

 pressly states that this admirable statue was the 

 work of Pietro Lombardi's son. The artists of 

 this family, to whom we owe the finest Renaissance 

 sculpture in Venice, were often employed in Ravenna. 



Pietro himself executed the bas-reliefs on the columns 



248 



